Archive for the ‘Alan Dershowitz’ Category

Ive been meaning to write about a debate between Alan Dershowitz and Cornel West over the BDS movement. Dershowitz beats me to it with this article for the Gatestone Institute.

The resolution Dershowitz and West debated was: The boycott, divestiture and sanctions (BDS) movement will help bring about the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Naturally, the debate ended up being more about that conflict than about BDS per se. However, Dershowitz had plenty to say about that noxious tactic (during the debate he explained why its not a movement).

Dershowitz won the debate in two senses. First, voting by the audience before and after the debate showed that he swayed 36 votes in his favor (i.e., against the resolution), while West swayed only 2 in his direction. Second, Dershowitz mopped the floor with West.

Dershowitz says he carried the day not because hes a better debater than West, but because the facts, the morality and the practicalities are against BDS. Hes right about the facts, morality and practicalities. However, its also the case that Dershowitz is a great debater while West is a great performance artist.

In his Gatestone piece, Dershowitz provides a good and fair account of the debate. However, I recommend watching the whole thing.

LawyerAlan Dershowitzis a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat. He supported former Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton during the campaign and voted for her when Election Day came.

In the wake of her loss, Dershowitz has repeatedly given his view on President Donald Trump. While he’s told the president to his face that he did not vote for him, his refusal to unfailingly criticize Trump has left a certain impression on his liberal friends.

They think I’m a Trump supporter, he explained to Fox News. Dershowitz added that with regard tothe president’s actions, he just calls it the way I see it through a legal lens.

The Daily Beast reported Dershowitz claimed that his life can always be judged by dinner invitations.

Just as his invitations were down when he defended O.J. Simpson, they’re down considerably now.

It’s not onlyamong his friends, either. Dershowitz admitted to Politico, that his nephew believes he’s helping keep one of the greatest dangers in American history, in office.

I tell him Im just standing up for principle, the lawyer said. He tells me that I dont have to stand up so loud.

On December 4, Trump called Dershowitz’s interview on Fox News’s Fox & Friends a must watch, which the liberal professor took in stride.

If the president likes what I’m saying, fine, but tomorrowhe may not like what I’m saying, he told Fox News. I’m an advocate for the rule of law. I’m an advocate for the Constitution.

While his socialcalendarmay be blank, Dershowitz added the caveat that he still receives invitations to speak because of the crowd size he draws.

Anyone whos followed the career of Alan Dershowitz knows three things about him. First, hes a civil libertarian. Second, hes a defense lawyer to his very core. Third, hes fearless the higher profile and more unpopular the case, the more hes willing to ride into legal battle. His work for the thoroughly unsympathetic Claus von Blow inspired an award-winning movie. He was part of the defense team of an evenless-sympathetic O.J. Simpson. Hes made legal arguments against prosecutorial overreach his entire life.

So is it any surprise that hes applying the same principles to Donald Trump? The Washington Examiner has a short piece discussing the price Dershowitzhas paid for making the same arguments hes always made this time in opposition to the various legal theories that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. In short, his friends and family are begging him for selective silence.

My really, really close friends say, Youre 100 percent right in your analysis, but cant you just shut the fk up and not talk at all, he said. They tell me, This is a time for selective silence. My nephew thinks Im helping keep in office one of the greatest dangers in American history. I tell him Im just standing up for principle. He tells me that I dont have to stand up so loud.

Dershowitz added that his family is no longer proud to be associated with him.

I was a source of pride to my kids, my grandkids, he said. Now its Oy, hes related to Alan Dershowitz. That hurts me a little bit.

This is poisonous. I dont agree with all of Dershowitzs arguments, but the proper method for addressing those argumentsis to rebut them, not to punish him and try to silence him simply because this time (and not when hes representing a double murderer) the accused is too terrible for a public defense even when that public defense is grounded in solid and defensible interpretations of criminal and constitutional law.

I cant claim to know Dershowitz well, but weve corresponded off an on since I was a student in his ethics class in 1993. Hes been a consistent defender of academic freedom, and we worked together on occasionwhen I was president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). I feel confident that he finds any number of Trump policies repugnant (and he may also find Trumps character repugnant), but arguing that he should keep silent is to argue that the defense of civil liberties iscontingent on the identity of the suspect and his or her popularity with the chattering classes.

Public controversies are teaching moments, and the more public the controversy the greater the need for informed discussion. There are few defense attorneys and civil libertarians better prepared to make their case than Alan Dershowitz. Hear him out. If you find yourself ill-equipped to rebut his arguments, rather than attempt to shame and silence him consider another alternative. He just might be right.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz praised U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki HaleyNimrata (Nikki) HaleyHaley: ‘Open question’ if US athletes will attend Olympics amid North Korea tensions Haley: Trump isn’t deciding who controls east Jerusalem Emergency UN Security Council meeting called after Trump’s Jerusalem announcement: report MOREs announcement that the U.S. had negotiated a major cut to the U.N.s budget for next year.

Its, I think, terrific, Dershowitz said Monday on Fox & Friends.”

Its about time we sent a message to the U.N., which has become a place of hate when it comes to the U.S. and Israel,” he added.

Haley announced Sunday that the Trump administration had secured a $285 million cut to the U.N.s fiscal 2018-2019 budget.

The announcement came days after U.N. members voted overwhelmingly for a resolution opposing President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for serious case of amnesia after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I dont want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MOREs decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Dershowitz said the U.N. vote warrants a response, and that by negotiating the budget cut, Haley did exactly the right thing.”

Its the first of many steps I think shell take to bring the United Nations back to where it ought to be, a neutral arbiter of peace, not a place of hatred, he said.

Dershowitz has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s decision on Jerusalem and said Monday that Trump did the right thing.

He also slammed former President Obama for abstaining from a vote at the end of his presidency that allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements,sayingthat Trumps decision was an act to restore balance.

Haley and Trump have both suggested that if the U.N. voted to oppose the Jerusalem decision, the U.S. would consider reducing its annual contributions to the body and may even cut off foreign aid to certain countries.

The U.S. acted properly in vetoing a misguided U.N. Security Council resolution designed to undo President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

First, it is beyond the jurisdiction of the United Nations to tell a sovereign nation what it can and cannot recognize. If Turkey, for example, were to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of “Palestine,” there is nothing the U.N. could or would do. (Of course, most U.N. members would applaud such a move.)

Second, the resolution fails to recognize that it was the December 2016 Security Council Resolution, the one engineered by lame duck President Barack Obama, that changed the status of Jerusalem and complicated the efforts to achieve a compromise peace. Before that benighted resolution, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital were widely recognized as part of Israel, or at worst, as disputed territory.

Everyone knew that any peace agreement would inevitably recognize that these historically Jewish areas were an indigenous part of Israel. They were certainly not illegally occupied by Israel, any more than Bethlehem was illegally occupied by the Palestinian Authority. Both Jerusalem and Bethlehem had originally been deemed part of an international zone by the United Nations when it divided the British mandate into two states for two people a decision accepted by Israel and rejected by all the Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs in the area. Jordan then attacked Israel and illegally occupied the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, prohibiting any Jewish access to these holy areas, as well as to the university and hospital. Jordan also illegally occupied Bethlehem.

In 1967, Jordan illegally attacked Israel. Jordan shelled civilian areas of Jerusalem. Israel responded and liberated the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital, thereby opening these sites to everyone.

That has been the status quo for the last half-century, until Obama engineered the notorious December 2016 Security Council Resolution that declared the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to be illegally occupied by Israel, thus changing the status quo.

This unwarranted change long opposed by United States administrations made a negotiated peace more difficult, because it handed the Jewish holy places over to the Palestinians without getting any concessions in return, thus requiring that Israel “buy” them back in any negotiation. As the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority once told me, “If we have the wall, we will demand much to return it to Israel, because we know Israel will give much to get it.”

By declaring this disputed territory illegally occupied by Israel, the Security Council enabled the Palestinian Authority to hold the sites hostage during any negotiation. That vote changed the status quo more than the declaration by President Trump. The Trump declaration restored some balance that was taken away by the Obama-inspired Security Council Resolution of a year ago.

Why did Obama change the status quo to the disadvantage of Israel? Congress did not want the change. The American people did not support the change. Many in the Obama administration opposed it. Even some members of the Security Council who voted for the resolution did not want the change. Obama did it as lame duck revenge against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he hated. His motive was personal, not patriotic. His decision was bad for America, for peace, and for America’s ally, Israel. He never would have done it except as a lame duck with no political accountability and no checks and balances.

Before that Security Council resolution changed the status quo, I did not support a unilateral recognition of Jerusalem by an American president, outside the context of a peace process. But once that resolution was passed and the status quo changed, I strongly supported President Trump’s decision to restore balance.

President Trump has been criticized for vetoing a resolution that has the support of every other Security Council member. That has been true of many anti-Israel Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. The United States often stands alone with Israel against the world, and the United States and Israel have been right.

The bias of the international community against the nation-state of the Jewish people has been long-standing and evident, especially at the United Nations. Abba Eban made the point years ago when he quipped that if Algeria presented a resolution that the earth was flat and Israel flattened it, the vote would be 128 in favor, 3 opposed and 62 abstentions. Recall the infamous U.N. General Assembly Resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. It received overwhelming support from the tyrannical nations of the world, which constitute a permanent majority of the United Nations, and was rescinded only after the United States issued threats if it were to remain on the books.

This entire brouhaha about Jerusalem including the staged tactical violence by Palestinians is entirely the fault of a single vengeful individual who put personal pique over American policy: Barack Obama.

Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of “Trumped up! How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy.” This article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

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The U.S. acted properly in vetoing a misguided Security Council resolution designed to undo President Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

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President Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital is a perfect response to President Obamas benighted decision to change American policy by engineering the United Nations Security Council Resolution declaring Judaisms holiest places in Jerusalem to be occupied territory and a flagrant violation under international law. It was President Obama who changed the status quo and made peace more difficult, by handing the Palestinians enormous leverage in future negotiations and disincentivizing them from making a compromised peace.

It had long been American foreign policy to veto any one-sided Security Council resolutions that declared Judaisms holiest places to be illegally occupied. Obamas decision to change that policy was not based on American interests or in the interests of peace. It was done out of personal revenge against Prime Minister Netanyahu and an act of pique by the outgoing president.

It was also designed improperly to tie the hands of President-elect Trump. President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution.

So if there is any change to the status quo, let the blame lie where it should be: at the hands of President Obama for his cowardly decision to wait until he was a lame-duck president to get even with Prime Minister Netanyahu. President Trump deserves praise for restoring balance in negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians. It was President Obama who made peace more difficult. It was President Trump who made it more feasible again.

The outrageously one-sided Security Council Resolution declared that any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law. This means, among other things, that Israels decision to build a plaza for prayer at the Western Wall Judaisms holiest site constitutes a flagrant violation of international law. This resolution was, therefore, not limited to settlements in the West Bank, as the Obama administration later claimed in a bait-and-switch. The resolution applied equally to the very heart of Israel.

Before June 4, 1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall, Judaisms holiest site. They were forbidden to attend classes at the Hebrew University at Mt. Scopus, which had been opened in 1925 and was supported by Albert Einstein. Jews could not seek medical care at the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, which had treated Jews and Arabs alike since 1918. Jews could not live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where their forbearers had built homes and synagogues for thousands of years. These Judenrein prohibitions were enacted by Jordan, which had captured by military force these Jewish areas during Israels War of Independence, in 1948, and had illegally occupied the entire West Bank, which the United Nations had set aside for an Arab state. When the Jordanian government occupied these historic Jewish sites, they destroyed all the remnants of Judaism, including synagogues, schools and cemeteries, whose headstones they used for urinals. Between 1948 and 1967, the United Nations did not offer a single resolution condemning this Jordanian occupation and cultural devastation.

When Israel retook these areas in a defensive war that Jordan started by shelling civilian homes in West Jerusalem, and opened them up as places where Jews could pray, study, receive medical treatment and live, the United States took the official position that it would not recognize Israels legitimate claims to Jewish Jerusalem.

It stated that the status of Jerusalem, including these newly liberated areas, would be left open to final negotiations and that the status quo would remain in place. That is the official rationale for why the United States refused to recognize any part of Jerusalem, including West Jerusalem, as part of Israel. That is why the United States refused to allow an American citizen born in any part of Jerusalem to put the words Jerusalem, Israel on his or her passport as their place of birth.

But even that historic status quo was changed with President Obamas unjustified decision not to veto the Security Council Resolution from last December. The United Nations all of a sudden determined that, subject to any further negotiations and agreements, the Jewish areas of Jerusalem recaptured from Jordan in 1967 are not part of Israel. Instead, they were territories being illegally occupied by Israel, and any building in these areas including places for prayer at the Western Wall, access roads to Mt. Scopus, and synagogues in the historic Jewish Quarter constitutes a flagrant violation under international law. If that indeed is the new status quo, then what incentives do the Palestinians have to enter negotiations? And if they were to do so, they could use these Jewish areas to extort unreasonable concessions from Israel, for which these now illegally occupied areas are sacred and nonnegotiable.

President Obamas refusal to veto this one-sided resolution was a deliberate ploy to tie the hands of his successors, the consequence of which was to make it far more difficult for his successors to encourage the Palestinians to accept Israels offer to negotiate with no preconditions. No future president can undo this pernicious agreement, since a veto not cast can never be retroactively cast. And a resolution once enacted cannot be rescinded unless there is a majority vote against it, with no veto by any of its permanent members, which include Russia and China, who would be sure to veto any attempt to undo this resolution.

President Trumps decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital helps to restore the appropriate balance. It demonstrates that the United States does not accept the Judenrein effects of this bigoted resolution on historic Jewish areas of Jerusalem, which were forbidden to Jews. The prior refusal of the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital was based explicitly on the notion that nothing should be done to change the status quo of that city, holy to three religions. But the Security Council Resolution did exactly that: It changed the status quo by declaring Israels de facto presence on these Jewish holy sites to be a flagrant violation under international law that the U.N. will not recognize.

Since virtually everyone in the international community acknowledges that any reasonable peace would recognize Israels legitimate claims to these and other areas in Jerusalem, there is no reason for allowing the U.N. Resolution to make criminals out of every Jew or Israeli who sets foot on these historically Jewish areas. (Ironically, President Obama prayed at what he regarded as the illegally occupied Western Wall.)

After the UN, at the urging of President Obama, made it a continuing international crime for there to be any Israeli presence in disputed areas of Jerusalem, including areas whose Jewish provenance is beyond dispute, President Trump was right to untie his own hands and to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor. Some have argued that the United States should not recognize Jerusalem because it will stimulate violence by Arab terrorists. No American decision should ever be influenced by the threat of violence. Terrorists should not have a veto over American policy. If the United States were to give in to threat of violence, it would only incentivize others to threaten violence in response to any peace plan.

So lets praise President Trump for doing the right thing by undoing the wrong thing President Obama did at the end of his presidency.

One of the more painful parts of the Trump Era is how it takes people from you. The high school buddy, the respected colleague, the celebrity icon: people who you used to love or respect or both are BODY SNATCHED by the Trump regime, and deployed against you. Were faced with a president who is openly bigoted, is an admitted sexual predator, courts nuclear war, lies, cheats, steals, and yet so many people are willing to serve him or give him aide and comfort publicly.

Trump makes you lose so much. He causes so much anguish.

There are three categories of loss. In bucket A, you have all the private people, the friends and family, who you can no longer talk to. How can you still break bread with people who think that their economic grievances are so important that it justifies national racism towards you, your children, and your immigrant wife? Ive lost friends because post-Trump I cant even trust them to be around my kids.

In bucket B, there are the public people. The ones you dont know personally but whose work or art you respected. I cannot respect somebody who will raise their voice and expend their effort on the same side that the Nazis are fighting for. I cannot forgive that. Some of these people openly support Nazis, others merely compartmentalize the white supremacy away from whatever policy point they think is really important. Either way, these people are irredeemable. When you decide to roll around in trash it matters little if you are rotten to the core or if you just smell that way. Im keeping a list, for when the wheel comes back around.

In bucket C, there are those who are silently complicit. They dont say anything overtly Trumpish, but they also dont do anything at all to resist. These are the both siders. They are LEGION in media. I see you. Youre dead to me too.

I say body snatched, but the reality is that all of these people have made a choice. Theyve all purposefully decided to throw themselves into the service of evil. Theyre not confused, theyre not mislead, theyve decided to be bad people. Theres a difference.

And yet I still want there to be a group of people who have simply, literally, turned into some kind of brain eating, p***y-grabbing zombies. If its a virus, maybe they can come back.

I think, I hope, Alan Dershowitz falls into that category.

Hes out there making trash arguments about how the president cant do anything illegal and saying that Black Lives Matter is Anti-Semitic. Its bad.

My colleague, Joe Patrice, has detailed the problems with Dershowitzs newfound foolishness. Ive stayed out of it because Im compromised. I never had Dershowitz for a class, but I have been to his office hours. I have debated him. I have respect for him. My wife took his class. He was our favorite law professor. Hes met my parents.

What hes doing is so painful that I need to believe that he can come back.

The Washington Post ran a piece today that allowed Dershowitz to, essentially, bitch and moan that nobody likes him anymore because hes become a Trump person. In it, he sounds like a parody of a law professor. He sounds like a junkie who gets high off of playing devils advocate to a hypothetical overdose.

Check out the end, where he seems giddy that his wife and children are concerned that everybody hates him now:

But look, I have a very thick skin, he said. Its upsetting my children. Its upsetting my wife a little bit. For me, its energizing.

Ill give Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe the credited response:

I need to believe that Dershowitz will find his way out of bigot Jumanji before its too late.

Elsewhere in the Washington Post article, Dershowitz spends a lot of time complaining that people are questioning his motives.

People have accused me of everything, Dershowitz told The Post. Of taking money. A guy on MSNBC asked me if I was being paid by Trump. Others have asked me if Im writing a book about it, he said. The answer to both is no and no.

Everybodys questioning motive, he said, with some suggesting hes jockeying for a seat on the Supreme Court (Im 79 years old) or that he wants to be Trumps lawyer. None of this is true, he said.

He doesnt get it. People are questioning his motives because impure motives are EASIER to believe than the possibility that Alan Dershowitz is just a trash-person now. Its EASIER to think that hes getting paid or that hes got some kind of long game hes playing, than to have to confront that reality that yet another person is fundamentally okay with bigots and predators running the country.

If Dershowitz had been, say, BITTEN by something, then somebody could just find the patient zero monkey that started this, synthesize an anti-virus, and inject Dershowitz with the cure, and hed go back to normal.

And then we could try that anti-virus on your uncle, and my buddy, and Tom Brady, and somehow this whole nightmare would end and we could start rebuilding society.

But this aint no fairy tale, is it? Dershowitz isnt an actual zombie, is he? People are just like this now. Evil continues to win the day.

On Monday night, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz attempted to address the toxic political climate that has consumed numerous investigations.

He agreed with Laura Ingraham that the DOJ inspector general should release the anti-Trump text messages of FBI investigatorPeter Strzok and that he should have recused himself from the very beginning.

What Im concerned about in your monologue, youre doing to Hillary Clinton exactly what the Democrats are trying to do to Donald Trump, Dershowitz told Ingraham. Youre trying to criminalize political differences.

Dershowitz insisted that the former Secretary of State didnt commit any crimes and that she was in fact extremely careless, which he noted was ultimately decided by then-FBI Director James Comey and not just Strzok.

But I think we have to stop criminalizing political differences on both sides, Dershowitz continued. Hillary Clinton shouldnt be locked up. Donald Trump shouldnt be prosecuted for any crimes. If you dont like what they did, dont vote for them. Thats the answer; democracy.

Ingraham pushed back, saying that people in the military are prosecuted for mishandling classified information on a regular basis and people at home ask why do the Clintons get special treatment. Dershowitz responded by saying that no one in American history in a position as high as Clinton was in had ever been prosecuted.

When youre in a position like Secretary of State and you have a lot of underlings working beneath you, Dershowitz elaborated, its very different than if you are your own officer in the army and you take things home in a clear violation of rules.

Dershowitz ended by calling for a cease-fire on both sides of the aisle.

Ive been meaning to write about a debate between Alan Dershowitz and Cornel West over the BDS movement. Dershowitz beats me to it with this article for the Gatestone Institute. The resolution Dershowitz and West debated was: The boycott, divestiture and sanctions (BDS) movement will help bring about the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Naturally, the debate ended up being more about that conflict than about BDS per se. However, Dershowitz had plenty to say about that noxious tactic (during the debate he explained why its not a movement). Dershowitz won the debate in two senses. First, voting by the audience before and after the debate showed that he swayed 36 votes in his favor (i.e., against the resolution), while West swayed only 2 in his direction. Second, Dershowitz mopped the floor with West. Dershowitz says he carried the day not because hes a better debater than West, but because the facts, the morality and the practicalities are against BDS. Hes right about the facts, morality and practicalities. However, its also the case that Dershowitz is a great debater while West is a great performance artist. In his Gatestone piece, Dershowitz provides a good and fair account of the debate. However, I recommend watching the whole thing.

Gage Skidmore/Flickr/John Lamparski/Getty LawyerAlan Dershowitzis a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat. He supported former Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton during the campaign and voted for her when Election Day came. In the wake of her loss, Dershowitz has repeatedly given his view on President Donald Trump. While he’s told the president to his face that he did not vote for him, his refusal to unfailingly criticize Trump has left a certain impression on his liberal friends. They think I’m a Trump supporter, he explained to Fox News. Dershowitz added that with regard tothe president’s actions, he just calls it the way I see it through a legal lens. The Daily Beast reported Dershowitz claimed that his life can always be judged by dinner invitations. Just as his invitations were down when he defended O.J. Simpson, they’re down considerably now. It’s not onlyamong his friends, either. Dershowitz admitted to Politico, that his nephew believes he’s helping keep one of the greatest dangers in American history, in office. I tell him Im just standing up for principle, the lawyer said. He tells me that I dont have to stand up so loud. On December 4, Trump called Dershowitz’s interview on Fox News’s Fox & Friends a must watch, which the liberal professor took in stride. If the president likes what I’m saying, fine, but tomorrowhe may not like what I’m saying, he told Fox News. I’m an advocate for the rule of law. I’m an advocate for the Constitution. While his socialcalendarmay be blank, Dershowitz added the caveat that he still receives invitations to speak because of the crowd size he draws. Watch below.

Anyone whos followed the career of Alan Dershowitz knows three things about him. First, hes a civil libertarian. Second, hes a defense lawyer to his very core. Third, hes fearless the higher profile and more unpopular the case, the more hes willing to ride into legal battle. His work for the thoroughly unsympathetic Claus von Blow inspired an award-winning movie. He was part of the defense team of an evenless-sympathetic O.J. Simpson. Hes made legal arguments against prosecutorial overreach his entire life. So is it any surprise that hes applying the same principles to Donald Trump? The Washington Examiner has a short piece discussing the price Dershowitzhas paid for making the same arguments hes always made this time in opposition to the various legal theories that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. In short, his friends and family are begging him for selective silence. My really, really close friends say, Youre 100 percent right in your analysis, but cant you just shut the fk up and not talk at all, he said. They tell me, This is a time for selective silence. My nephew thinks Im helping keep in office one of the greatest dangers in American history. I tell him Im just standing up for principle. He tells me that I dont have to stand up so loud. Dershowitz added that his family is no longer proud to be associated with him. I was a source of pride to my kids, my grandkids, he said. Now its Oy, hes related to Alan Dershowitz. That hurts me a little bit. This is poisonous. I dont agree with all of Dershowitzs arguments, but the proper method for addressing those argumentsis to rebut them, not to punish him and try to silence him simply because this time (and not when hes representing a double murderer) the accused is too terrible for a public defense even when that public defense is grounded in solid and defensible interpretations of criminal and constitutional law. I cant claim to know Dershowitz well, but weve corresponded off an on since I was a student in his ethics class in 1993. Hes been a consistent defender of academic freedom, and we worked together on occasionwhen I was president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). I feel confident that he finds any number of Trump policies repugnant (and he may also find Trumps character repugnant), but arguing that he should keep silent is to argue that the defense of civil liberties iscontingent on the identity of the suspect and his or her popularity with the chattering classes. Public controversies are teaching moments, and the more public the controversy the greater the need for informed discussion. There are few defense attorneys and civil libertarians better prepared to make their case than Alan Dershowitz. Hear him out. If you find yourself ill-equipped to rebut his arguments, rather than attempt to shame and silence him consider another alternative. He just might be right.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz praised U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki HaleyNimrata (Nikki) HaleyHaley: ‘Open question’ if US athletes will attend Olympics amid North Korea tensions Haley: Trump isn’t deciding who controls east Jerusalem Emergency UN Security Council meeting called after Trump’s Jerusalem announcement: report MOREs announcement that the U.S. had negotiated a major cut to the U.N.s budget for next year. Its, I think, terrific, Dershowitz said Monday on Fox & Friends.” Its about time we sent a message to the U.N., which has become a place of hate when it comes to the U.S. and Israel,” he added. Haley announced Sunday that the Trump administration had secured a $285 million cut to the U.N.s fiscal 2018-2019 budget. The announcement came days after U.N. members voted overwhelmingly for a resolution opposing President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for serious case of amnesia after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I dont want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MOREs decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Dershowitz said the U.N. vote warrants a response, and that by negotiating the budget cut, Haley did exactly the right thing.” Its the first of many steps I think shell take to bring the United Nations back to where it ought to be, a neutral arbiter of peace, not a place of hatred, he said. Dershowitz has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s decision on Jerusalem and said Monday that Trump did the right thing. He also slammed former President Obama for abstaining from a vote at the end of his presidency that allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements,sayingthat Trumps decision was an act to restore balance. Haley and Trump have both suggested that if the U.N. voted to oppose the Jerusalem decision, the U.S. would consider reducing its annual contributions to the body and may even cut off foreign aid to certain countries.

The U.S. acted properly in vetoing a misguided U.N. Security Council resolution designed to undo President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. First, it is beyond the jurisdiction of the United Nations to tell a sovereign nation what it can and cannot recognize. If Turkey, for example, were to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of “Palestine,” there is nothing the U.N. could or would do. (Of course, most U.N. members would applaud such a move.) Second, the resolution fails to recognize that it was the December 2016 Security Council Resolution, the one engineered by lame duck President Barack Obama, that changed the status of Jerusalem and complicated the efforts to achieve a compromise peace. Before that benighted resolution, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital were widely recognized as part of Israel, or at worst, as disputed territory. Everyone knew that any peace agreement would inevitably recognize that these historically Jewish areas were an indigenous part of Israel. They were certainly not illegally occupied by Israel, any more than Bethlehem was illegally occupied by the Palestinian Authority. Both Jerusalem and Bethlehem had originally been deemed part of an international zone by the United Nations when it divided the British mandate into two states for two people a decision accepted by Israel and rejected by all the Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs in the area. Jordan then attacked Israel and illegally occupied the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, prohibiting any Jewish access to these holy areas, as well as to the university and hospital. Jordan also illegally occupied Bethlehem. In 1967, Jordan illegally attacked Israel. Jordan shelled civilian areas of Jerusalem. Israel responded and liberated the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital, thereby opening these sites to everyone. That has been the status quo for the last half-century, until Obama engineered the notorious December 2016 Security Council Resolution that declared the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the access roads to be illegally occupied by Israel, thus changing the status quo. This unwarranted change long opposed by United States administrations made a negotiated peace more difficult, because it handed the Jewish holy places over to the Palestinians without getting any concessions in return, thus requiring that Israel “buy” them back in any negotiation. As the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority once told me, “If we have the wall, we will demand much to return it to Israel, because we know Israel will give much to get it.” By declaring this disputed territory illegally occupied by Israel, the Security Council enabled the Palestinian Authority to hold the sites hostage during any negotiation. That vote changed the status quo more than the declaration by President Trump. The Trump declaration restored some balance that was taken away by the Obama-inspired Security Council Resolution of a year ago. Why did Obama change the status quo to the disadvantage of Israel? Congress did not want the change. The American people did not support the change. Many in the Obama administration opposed it. Even some members of the Security Council who voted for the resolution did not want the change. Obama did it as lame duck revenge against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he hated. His motive was personal, not patriotic. His decision was bad for America, for peace, and for America’s ally, Israel. He never would have done it except as a lame duck with no political accountability and no checks and balances. Before that Security Council resolution changed the status quo, I did not support a unilateral recognition of Jerusalem by an American president, outside the context of a peace process. But once that resolution was passed and the status quo changed, I strongly supported President Trump’s decision to restore balance. President Trump has been criticized for vetoing a resolution that has the support of every other Security Council member. That has been true of many anti-Israel Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. The United States often stands alone with Israel against the world, and the United States and Israel have been right. The bias of the international community against the nation-state of the Jewish people has been long-standing and evident, especially at the United Nations. Abba Eban made the point years ago when he quipped that if Algeria presented a resolution that the earth was flat and Israel flattened it, the vote would be 128 in favor, 3 opposed and 62 abstentions. Recall the infamous U.N. General Assembly Resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. It received overwhelming support from the tyrannical nations of the world, which constitute a permanent majority of the United Nations, and was rescinded only after the United States issued threats if it were to remain on the books. This entire brouhaha about Jerusalem including the staged tactical violence by Palestinians is entirely the fault of a single vengeful individual who put personal pique over American policy: Barack Obama. Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of “Trumped up! How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy.” This article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute. If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

Dec 20, 2017 The U.S. acted properly in vetoing a misguided Security Council resolution designed to undo President Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital. Dec 19, 2017 The Trump team is probably not going to seek to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. To do so would be to provoke Trumps crucial supporters in Congress. Dec 9, 2017 Violence should be responded to by police and military action, not by giving in to the unreasonable demands of those who use violence as a tactic. Dec 6, 2017 President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution. Dec 4, 2017 Flynn’s plea may be a show of weakness on the part of Muller rather than strength. So far Mueller has charged potential witnesses with crimes bearing little or no relationship to any possible crimes committed by current White House incumbents. The investigation may end with whimpers. Nov 29, 2017 Palestinian terrorist leaders often use teenagers to commit acts of terror because they know that the Israeli legal system treats child terrorists more leniently than adult terrorists. Nov 7, 2017 On November 3, The Daily Californian published an op-ed by Matthew Taylor, explicitly accusing me of having blood on his [my] hands and being culpable for the perpetuation of[Israeli] atrocities. Oct 31, 2017 By publishing an op-ed that defends bigoted caricatures only of a Jewish supporter of Israel , when no college newspaper would ever peddle stereotypes of other ethnic, religious or social groups , the Forward too engages in an unacceptable double standard.

President Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital is a perfect response to President Obamas benighted decision to change American policy by engineering the United Nations Security Council Resolution declaring Judaisms holiest places in Jerusalem to be occupied territory and a flagrant violation under international law. It was President Obama who changed the status quo and made peace more difficult, by handing the Palestinians enormous leverage in future negotiations and disincentivizing them from making a compromised peace. It had long been American foreign policy to veto any one-sided Security Council resolutions that declared Judaisms holiest places to be illegally occupied. Obamas decision to change that policy was not based on American interests or in the interests of peace. It was done out of personal revenge against Prime Minister Netanyahu and an act of pique by the outgoing president. It was also designed improperly to tie the hands of President-elect Trump. President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution. So if there is any change to the status quo, let the blame lie where it should be: at the hands of President Obama for his cowardly decision to wait until he was a lame-duck president to get even with Prime Minister Netanyahu. President Trump deserves praise for restoring balance in negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians. It was President Obama who made peace more difficult. It was President Trump who made it more feasible again. The outrageously one-sided Security Council Resolution declared that any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law. This means, among other things, that Israels decision to build a plaza for prayer at the Western Wall Judaisms holiest site constitutes a flagrant violation of international law. This resolution was, therefore, not limited to settlements in the West Bank, as the Obama administration later claimed in a bait-and-switch. The resolution applied equally to the very heart of Israel. Before June 4, 1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall, Judaisms holiest site. They were forbidden to attend classes at the Hebrew University at Mt. Scopus, which had been opened in 1925 and was supported by Albert Einstein. Jews could not seek medical care at the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, which had treated Jews and Arabs alike since 1918. Jews could not live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where their forbearers had built homes and synagogues for thousands of years. These Judenrein prohibitions were enacted by Jordan, which had captured by military force these Jewish areas during Israels War of Independence, in 1948, and had illegally occupied the entire West Bank, which the United Nations had set aside for an Arab state. When the Jordanian government occupied these historic Jewish sites, they destroyed all the remnants of Judaism, including synagogues, schools and cemeteries, whose headstones they used for urinals. Between 1948 and 1967, the United Nations did not offer a single resolution condemning this Jordanian occupation and cultural devastation. When Israel retook these areas in a defensive war that Jordan started by shelling civilian homes in West Jerusalem, and opened them up as places where Jews could pray, study, receive medical treatment and live, the United States took the official position that it would not recognize Israels legitimate claims to Jewish Jerusalem. It stated that the status of Jerusalem, including these newly liberated areas, would be left open to final negotiations and that the status quo would remain in place. That is the official rationale for why the United States refused to recognize any part of Jerusalem, including West Jerusalem, as part of Israel. That is why the United States refused to allow an American citizen born in any part of Jerusalem to put the words Jerusalem, Israel on his or her passport as their place of birth. But even that historic status quo was changed with President Obamas unjustified decision not to veto the Security Council Resolution from last December. The United Nations all of a sudden determined that, subject to any further negotiations and agreements, the Jewish areas of Jerusalem recaptured from Jordan in 1967 are not part of Israel. Instead, they were territories being illegally occupied by Israel, and any building in these areas including places for prayer at the Western Wall, access roads to Mt. Scopus, and synagogues in the historic Jewish Quarter constitutes a flagrant violation under international law. If that indeed is the new status quo, then what incentives do the Palestinians have to enter negotiations? And if they were to do so, they could use these Jewish areas to extort unreasonable concessions from Israel, for which these now illegally occupied areas are sacred and nonnegotiable. President Obamas refusal to veto this one-sided resolution was a deliberate ploy to tie the hands of his successors, the consequence of which was to make it far more difficult for his successors to encourage the Palestinians to accept Israels offer to negotiate with no preconditions. No future president can undo this pernicious agreement, since a veto not cast can never be retroactively cast. And a resolution once enacted cannot be rescinded unless there is a majority vote against it, with no veto by any of its permanent members, which include Russia and China, who would be sure to veto any attempt to undo this resolution. President Trumps decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital helps to restore the appropriate balance. It demonstrates that the United States does not accept the Judenrein effects of this bigoted resolution on historic Jewish areas of Jerusalem, which were forbidden to Jews. The prior refusal of the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital was based explicitly on the notion that nothing should be done to change the status quo of that city, holy to three religions. But the Security Council Resolution did exactly that: It changed the status quo by declaring Israels de facto presence on these Jewish holy sites to be a flagrant violation under international law that the U.N. will not recognize. Since virtually everyone in the international community acknowledges that any reasonable peace would recognize Israels legitimate claims to these and other areas in Jerusalem, there is no reason for allowing the U.N. Resolution to make criminals out of every Jew or Israeli who sets foot on these historically Jewish areas. (Ironically, President Obama prayed at what he regarded as the illegally occupied Western Wall.) After the UN, at the urging of President Obama, made it a continuing international crime for there to be any Israeli presence in disputed areas of Jerusalem, including areas whose Jewish provenance is beyond dispute, President Trump was right to untie his own hands and to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor. Some have argued that the United States should not recognize Jerusalem because it will stimulate violence by Arab terrorists. No American decision should ever be influenced by the threat of violence. Terrorists should not have a veto over American policy. If the United States were to give in to threat of violence, it would only incentivize others to threaten violence in response to any peace plan. So lets praise President Trump for doing the right thing by undoing the wrong thing President Obama did at the end of his presidency.

One of the more painful parts of the Trump Era is how it takes people from you. The high school buddy, the respected colleague, the celebrity icon: people who you used to love or respect or both are BODY SNATCHED by the Trump regime, and deployed against you. Were faced with a president who is openly bigoted, is an admitted sexual predator, courts nuclear war, lies, cheats, steals, and yet so many people are willing to serve him or give him aide and comfort publicly. Trump makes you lose so much. He causes so much anguish. There are three categories of loss. In bucket A, you have all the private people, the friends and family, who you can no longer talk to. How can you still break bread with people who think that their economic grievances are so important that it justifies national racism towards you, your children, and your immigrant wife? Ive lost friends because post-Trump I cant even trust them to be around my kids. In bucket B, there are the public people. The ones you dont know personally but whose work or art you respected. I cannot respect somebody who will raise their voice and expend their effort on the same side that the Nazis are fighting for. I cannot forgive that. Some of these people openly support Nazis, others merely compartmentalize the white supremacy away from whatever policy point they think is really important. Either way, these people are irredeemable. When you decide to roll around in trash it matters little if you are rotten to the core or if you just smell that way. Im keeping a list, for when the wheel comes back around. In bucket C, there are those who are silently complicit. They dont say anything overtly Trumpish, but they also dont do anything at all to resist. These are the both siders. They are LEGION in media. I see you. Youre dead to me too. I say body snatched, but the reality is that all of these people have made a choice. Theyve all purposefully decided to throw themselves into the service of evil. Theyre not confused, theyre not mislead, theyve decided to be bad people. Theres a difference. And yet I still want there to be a group of people who have simply, literally, turned into some kind of brain eating, p***y-grabbing zombies. If its a virus, maybe they can come back. I think, I hope, Alan Dershowitz falls into that category. Hes out there making trash arguments about how the president cant do anything illegal and saying that Black Lives Matter is Anti-Semitic. Its bad. My colleague, Joe Patrice, has detailed the problems with Dershowitzs newfound foolishness. Ive stayed out of it because Im compromised. I never had Dershowitz for a class, but I have been to his office hours. I have debated him. I have respect for him. My wife took his class. He was our favorite law professor. Hes met my parents. What hes doing is so painful that I need to believe that he can come back. The Washington Post ran a piece today that allowed Dershowitz to, essentially, bitch and moan that nobody likes him anymore because hes become a Trump person. In it, he sounds like a parody of a law professor. He sounds like a junkie who gets high off of playing devils advocate to a hypothetical overdose. Check out the end, where he seems giddy that his wife and children are concerned that everybody hates him now: But look, I have a very thick skin, he said. Its upsetting my children. Its upsetting my wife a little bit. For me, its energizing. Ill give Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe the credited response: I need to believe that Dershowitz will find his way out of bigot Jumanji before its too late. Elsewhere in the Washington Post article, Dershowitz spends a lot of time complaining that people are questioning his motives. People have accused me of everything, Dershowitz told The Post. Of taking money. A guy on MSNBC asked me if I was being paid by Trump. Others have asked me if Im writing a book about it, he said. The answer to both is no and no. Everybodys questioning motive, he said, with some suggesting hes jockeying for a seat on the Supreme Court (Im 79 years old) or that he wants to be Trumps lawyer. None of this is true, he said. He doesnt get it. People are questioning his motives because impure motives are EASIER to believe than the possibility that Alan Dershowitz is just a trash-person now. Its EASIER to think that hes getting paid or that hes got some kind of long game hes playing, than to have to confront that reality that yet another person is fundamentally okay with bigots and predators running the country. If Dershowitz had been, say, BITTEN by something, then somebody could just find the patient zero monkey that started this, synthesize an anti-virus, and inject Dershowitz with the cure, and hed go back to normal. And then we could try that anti-virus on your uncle, and my buddy, and Tom Brady, and somehow this whole nightmare would end and we could start rebuilding society. But this aint no fairy tale, is it? Dershowitz isnt an actual zombie, is he? People are just like this now. Evil continues to win the day. Alan Dershowitzs new reality: Tweeted by Trump, shunned by liberal friends [Washington Post]

On Monday night, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz attempted to address the toxic political climate that has consumed numerous investigations. He agreed with Laura Ingraham that the DOJ inspector general should release the anti-Trump text messages of FBI investigatorPeter Strzok and that he should have recused himself from the very beginning. What Im concerned about in your monologue, youre doing to Hillary Clinton exactly what the Democrats are trying to do to Donald Trump, Dershowitz told Ingraham. Youre trying to criminalize political differences. Dershowitz insisted that the former Secretary of State didnt commit any crimes and that she was in fact extremely careless, which he noted was ultimately decided by then-FBI Director James Comey and not just Strzok. But I think we have to stop criminalizing political differences on both sides, Dershowitz continued. Hillary Clinton shouldnt be locked up. Donald Trump shouldnt be prosecuted for any crimes. If you dont like what they did, dont vote for them. Thats the answer; democracy. Ingraham pushed back, saying that people in the military are prosecuted for mishandling classified information on a regular basis and people at home ask why do the Clintons get special treatment. Dershowitz responded by saying that no one in American history in a position as high as Clinton was in had ever been prosecuted. When youre in a position like Secretary of State and you have a lot of underlings working beneath you, Dershowitz elaborated, its very different than if you are your own officer in the army and you take things home in a clear violation of rules. Dershowitz ended by calling for a cease-fire on both sides of the aisle. Watch the clip above, via Fox News. Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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